Category Archives: Community

Ikea announced today that they will partner with Marriott to create a new budget “hotel brand” based on their prefabricated furniture model. The hotels won’t include Ikea furniture, but instead will be built based on new construction methods that stress lower-cost materials. Prefabricated hotel rooms will be built in a central location and placed wherever needs arise. This is a similar model to what some retailers are doing with popup stores in areas that swarm with large groups of people for specific events. Kind of like what Apple did at SXSW during its iPad launch — quickly create a popup store to sell items where people are gathered, and then take the store down after the event is over.

Popup hotels could be quickly assembled in areas where events bring large amounts of people together. Even here in Austin right now, it’s virtually impossible to get a hotel room, and if you do, it’s easily $400 a night. Popup hotels could offer some relief to the need for rooms, and will attract a younger, more budget-conscious traveler.

Ikea and Marriott will launch their first popup hotel in Milan this year.

Found this terrific post on the emerging “peer-to-peer” economy and its potential problems. A lot has been circulating recently about Uber‘s service and others like it. Tom Slee has taken the time to uncover some of the issues that unregulated services bring with them:

In Peer-to-Peer Hucksterism Slee contrasts what the founders of AirBnB and Uber are saying about “community” versus what they’re doing as a “business”. As P2P becomes more prevalent and becomes funded and backed by billionaire venture capitalists, it begs the question about how much regulation is needed. Especially in light of the tragic rape of the young Indian woman who was traveling on an unregulated bus.

A few days ago, the NY Times released this video (that refuses to embed), which was actually captured on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. It’s a nice moment, because it reminds us that there are enough of us out there to help conquer hate – and we can use the Beatles to do it.

In the video, Pastor Terry Jones is espousing incorrect and offensive rhetoric about Muslims in Times Square. People around him argue, but in the end it’s one guy who raises his voice in “All You Need is Love” who shuts down the speaker. Amazingly, the entire square joins in, singing the Beatles.

I thought it was a wonderful thought for today, the day before Christmas and smack in the middle of the Holiday Season.

No matter what you celebrate, I hope it’s wonderful!

All You Need is Love

If you don’t live here, you probably don’t realize a lot of the extremes that exist in the Silicon Valley. In my last year (my first year), in the Bay area, it has been nothing if not a culture shock for me.

Regular people working for tech firms, just trying to get by. Students, grabbed right out of college, pulled into startups or excellent jobs at Google, and making the “big bucks” because they don’t yet have “real” expenses.

The uber-rich of local Valley neighborhoods (I live at the intersection between two of those neighborhoods and routinely follow Ferraris onto the highway ramp) who exist right along with the rest of us.

Then I go to the Stanford Shopping Centre and I see, as I wait to turn left, the homeless and homeless vets who are routinely on the corner of El Camino and Sand Hill Road (Sand Hill, where there is more venture capital money than you can imagine), and I wonder who is helping those people. When I actually have cash, I’ll often give it to these guys. Maybe I’m just a sucker, but the image in my mind, of these homeless people surrounded by all this excess in the Valley – well, it bothers me.

Because of that, I like to hear when something good and charitable happens around here. That it’s not just about sportscars and high-end fashion.  On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook (who is only 28 years old) announced he would donate nearly $500 million in company stock to a local charity called Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The SVCF is a charity that works with donors and other charities to allocate their money, offer grants, and help charities with programs like marketing and fundraising. Zuckerberg’s donation is earmarked for health and education issues.

In recent years, Zuckerberg pledged $100 million in stock to Newark public schools and joined with Bill Gates in the Giving Pledge, which asks the wealthiest amongst us to donate most of their wealth. (Really, how many Teslas do you need anyway?)

You can read Zuckerberg’s Facebook pledge here. And really, it gives me a little faith to know that despite the extremes of wealth and poverty in the Valley, some people really are using their money to help.

Popchips  the top selling line of popped chips and one of the fastest growing snack brands in the u.s., today announced a month long mobile fashion truck tour, giving snack fanatics the opportunity to dress like a popstar, and snack like one too.

Following the lead from the gourmet food trucks that brought high-end eats to the masses, PopChips teams up with the Bay Area’s first fashion truck, topshelf boutique, to add some flavor to fall for fashionistas of all ages. just in time for the holidays, PopChips presents an exclusive pop-up mobile fashion truck shopping and snacking experience. snackers are invited to pop over to one of the 34 local stops and check out nor cal’s premiere fashion truck, get the popstar look with hand selected affordable styles, get poppin’ with music and prizes all while snacking on complimentary popchips, of course.

The PopChips pop-up fashion truck will make 34 stops throughout northern california including a launch event at BloodHound in San Francisco on Thursday, November 1 from 5-8:00 p.m. During the month of November the truck will pop up at local retailers like whole foods and nugget markets, college and corporate campuses and local neighborhood hotspots from San Francisco to San Jose to Sacramento and beyond. The last two days of the tour are reserved for a “people’s choice pop-up” where fans can suggest the final three locations. for an up to date schedule of where the pop-up fashion truck will be, visit popchips.com/fashiontruck; to view popstar inspired looks by topshelf, visit flickr.com/photos/topshelf_boutique.

what: popchips northern ca pop-up fashion truck tour

when: kicking off on thursday, november 1 from 5 – 8:00 p.m.; additional events extend throughout the month of november

where: kick-off party at bloodhound
1145 folsom st at 7th
san francisco, ca
www.bloodhoundsf.com

who: www.popchips.com/fashiontruck and www.topshelfboutique.com

cost: free